Friday, 9 March 2018

So here we are nearly two months since I last blogged, at the beginning of March already, and I'm pleased to say that over the last month or so things have calmed down a lot on the social front compared to the few months previous. Which I have to say that I am pretty grateful for, because as much as it is nice to be busy socially, I did feel like I was getting very behind with things on the Bobby Bunny & Friends front prior to Christmas. My orders were going well and have been continuing to build even more so now that we are now well into the swing of 2018, but I just wasn't getting the time needed to create new designs, and put the needed work into the social media side of thing either. So January very much felt like a catch-up, and practice month to the new year for me!

As for Feb I'm not quite sure where that went so quickly, but finally catching the cold lurgy that I'd been managing to avoid up until then didn't help! I'd been feeling pretty run down with it brewing for weeks before it finally came out, but I now finally feel much better and am starting to get my energy levels back! I've also had the week off from my little gift shop job this week which has given me time to get update with things, and I now almost feel almost up to speed with myself for the first time in a long time!

There has been some social activity around here though, firstly in the form of meals out. One of which back towards the end of Jan was an annual gathering at one of my friends houses, where we and some other friends had a lovely catch-up, and where the hosts announced that they were to be having a baby! The second meal was then the week after for one of the hubby's friends birthday's, which was held at a local restaurant, and again was lovely as it had been a while since we had caught up with them too! The third was a lunch and a catch-up with a friend that I hadn't seen since well before Chistmas, and finally the fourth was an afternoon tea in Brighton for a friends hen do, which took place last weekend.. Below you can see the gorgeous afternoon tea, the lovely views that we had overlooking the hotel balcony, and the gorgeous keepsakes that one of the lovely hens made for us.

Aside from meals, we caught up with my parents, sister, and her boyfriend for a chilled afternoon of lunch, rugby, and Prosecco at one of our local pubs on Sunday at the beginning of Feb. Then a couple of Sat's back I had a lovely evening out catching-up with the girls for the first time since there 30th birthday's in mid Dec, where we watched a band at a local pub and danced the night away. Finally my hubby came and met me in Brighton last Saturday after the hen afternoon tea as we had a Morrissey gig at the Brighton Center that evening. I can't say that I am a Morrissey fan, but I went for my hubby who was in his element! It was however a better gig than I though it would be, and you can see a few pics from it below, as well as the Prosecco that we enjoyed when out with my family.

Like I say in-between all this, and between being needed to work overtime on some weekends, there have been many chilled days too! Days where we have just spent the day in our pj's, especially when the weather has been rubbish! One of which was the sat before Valentine's, when my hubby was out with his dad and brothers, and my friend that I was meant to be going out with that evening had to cancel due to being unwell, which meant that I was left at a loose end. It worked out well though as like I say the weather was rubbish, and I was also feeling rather knackered after having a late and spontaneous night out with my hubby, old assistant manager, and one of his work colleagues the night before. So I decided to do something that I pretty much never get to do these days ,which was to snuggle up with tea and cake and watch the "Valentine's Day" chic flick that was being aired on TV, which I had never seen before.

Talking of Valentine's Day! In order to mark the occasionI decided to re-work my "Anniversary Love Bunnies" piece that I did way back in 2009, which I have always liked the composition of, but that didn't really fit in with the style that I use for my Bobby Bunny & Friends brand now. It was something that I had been meaning to do for sometime and I thought that with Valentine's coming up that I could use it as both a Valentine's post, and then convert it into an Anniversary card listing. If you follow me on Instagram, Facebook, or Flickr you may have already seen it, but if not then you can see it from sketch to finish below. As well as a comparison between the new and old designs.

I'm really happy with the way that it's turned out, didn't struggle too much with the composition, and like I say it will be on sale in my Etsy shop as an Anniversary card within the next week.

On a more personal level my hubby and I celebrated Valentine's in our usual fashion with our M&S meal for two, which I am very glad that we did as the weather was hideous that evening so I'm glad that we didn't go out! Below you can see our meal that consisted of our usual Tai Fishcakes for starters, peppercorn steak with a peppercorn sauce and tripple cooked chips for our mains, and then a Creme Brule topped with heart chocolates for dessert. All of which was accompanied by a sparkling Lemon & Rose presse drink.

I also found a cute and very apt bunny card to give to my hubby too, which again you can see below.

As I have mentioned in the past the hubby and I don't really tend to do presents for each other for things like Valentine's, birthday's, or Christmas, unless there is something that we would specifically like. But this year we both got the best Valentine's present ever, and that was the arrival of our new Niece who's baby shower I mentioned in my last post.

My sister an law was due to have a planned c-section on 20th Feb, but after she began to go into early labor the cesarean was bought forward to the 13th Feb. The hubby and I didn't know anything about it until it happened, but we were over the moon for them when we had heard that she had arrived safely, especially after the long and hard journey that they have had to get her. She weighed a healthy 7lb 7oz, which was pretty good considering she was just under two weeks early, and mum and baby did so well that they were sent home the evening after! So as we only live a 10-15 min drive from them we were fortunate enough to see her the evening after she came home, when she was just two day old! We had a bit of a nightmare journey getting there though! As I went to pick my hubby up from work, which meant going past where they live and back again, but got stuck in heavy traffic on the way to pick him up, and standstill traffic going from his work to his sister. Which meant that a journey that should have taken under an hour even in rush hour ended up taking three hours! We got there in the end though, complete with cold Mc Donalds for both them and us. But the queues were totally worth it in order to have squishes with our gorgeous little niece, who was just beautiful and already has a full head of dark hair! Below you can see her gorgeous little hand clinging onto my finger.

In Flo news, she got in on the Valentine's act too as you can see below!

As well as this we have continued to have more problems with her over-grooming and doing pearly poos over the last month or so, which has coincided with her molting. She's not been pulling or chewing on the fur but just seems to swallow a lot of it regardless of brushing. I'm not sure why it keeps on happening, but she does feel the world
through licking more than any bunny I have ever had. To add to this our little one has not been well twice since I last blogged, and both instances were within two weeks of each other.

The first was back towards the end of January, and the other was at the beginning of Feb. Like the last time when she was ill back in September she again went downhill
very quickly after having been really hyper that afternoon, and once again I knew that something wasn't right as soon as I went to feed her in the evening. She kept sprawling out, was very lethargic, and once again looked like she had instantly lost lots of weight. Which I think is because she breathes very fast and shallow when this happens, and as she is so slender across her ribs it really shows. Once again I got her out and gave her tummy rubs before returning her to her hutch to rest, where she was again refusing all food and water. I talked to her and comforted her, and within the space of 45 mins she went from being quite ill back to eating and being her normal self and full of beans again! I've never seen such a quick turn around as it lasted 9 hours last time, and could last up to 12 hours when it used to happen to Mill and Moll. But obviously I was glad that she had bounced back so quickly! Then again the same thing happened in the evening exactly two weeks later, this time for about an hour. So once again we went through the tummy rubs etc, before she once again she bounced back to her usual self.

I don't know if it is connected to her over-grooming as she often passes big and
miss-shaped pearly poos after these episodes. But if it is the case than I’m not
sure why, as she has always had a good high fiber diet of a few Burgess
pellets morning and night, lots of high quality mixed herb hay, dried
dandelion mix, fresh water, and basil (as she is a fussy little miss and
doesn’t like any other greens or fruit and veg that I’ve tried her on
including banana!) The only other thing that she has is the occasional
sparing few bites of a food stick which she adores, but doesn’t seem to
co-inside with any of the episodes! She also generally passes poos fine
before hand, and they generally seem normal and consistently sized.

I have searched an searched and sought advice from others as to why she might be ingesting so much hair, plus having these episodes, but can't seem to find anything concrete. I’m pretty sure that she is not stressed as she isn’t pulling
at the fur or leaving patches, she has plenty of enrichment both in and
outside of her hutch, plus she doesn’t get left alone for long periods
of time as I generally work from home. She also shows no body language
signs of being stressed, but she is quite OCD about everything, and
where everything goes in her hutch. So whether it is just behavioral or
maybe hormonal as she is not spayed yet, I’m not sure. GI statis was a possible, but it doesn’t seem to go on long
enough for that, and again I don’t know what would be the cause if this
was the case. I've also read about the use of pure
pineapple juice in water or Infacol in-case it’s trapped wind, which can be fatal as bunnies can't pass wind or be sick.

However even though we haven't found anything concrete we have invested in a "Furminator" brush rather than just using her normal brush, as it helps get out the undercoat. I wasn't sure that it was making much of a difference to start with, as she was still doing the pearly poos. But we are a few weeks or so on from when we started using it now, and she has seems to not only have stopped molting, but the pearly poo situation has gradually improved hugely. Plus we have also changed her from her usual Burgess pellets up to the adult Burgess pellets. Again I wasn't sure it was making a difference start with, but touch wood once we haven't had any pearly poos or episodes for a good month now! So hopefully we are making progress, as I hate to see our little baby in pain! The increased frequency of the latest episodes was worrying though as it would only happen once or twice a year with Mill & Moll. So now every time she sprawls or starts breathing fast at the moment it puts me on tender hooks that something is wrong.

The vet didn't seem to have many ideas when we took her to have her annual mixi jab either, (which was the week after the second episode) saying that she’s a good weight of still 2.26kg, is breathing well, her
heart is good, and she has no parasites in her fur. However we haven’t managed to find any rabbit specialist vets around us yet, so
this may just be down to lack of knowledge that they had no other ideas.

When it came to having her jab itself she was once again a little angel as with last year, but I did wonder if she would be now that she had reached bunny adolescence! We did however have drama as usual when it came to her nail clipping, and with the vet trying to check her teeth though! I thought that we had turned a corner with this after she was so good with it last time with her new basket, and having my hubby there, but apparently not! She was more stressed in the basket this time than last, and was dribbling whilst we were in the waiting room. She then kept bucking when the vet tried to check her teeth, which they said that she had got down to an art! She then wasn't too bad having her front nails cut, but was a pain as usual when it came to the vet touching and clipping her back feet!

Once home she got over the drama pretty quickly, but wasn't happy with me at all, and turned her back on me even when her favorite food was offered. It didn't take long for me to be forgiven though! Little monkey! I think I got just as stressed if not more about taking her than she did though! Below you can see her pulling one of her funny Flo faces.

In other bunny news I bought these gorgeous bunny night lights in the sale at work the other week. I think that they are probably for children, but they do give out a lovely glow, and how could I resist the bunnies! Below you can see them.

As well as the night lights I also did some other January sale shopping within the last month with my Christmas money, including buying the gorgeous Pandora bangle below! I love it so much, and it so sparkly, but the pics don't really do it justice! One half of it is sparkly, and the other half is a plain baby pink band, and then inside it has a lovely heart detailing that runs the whole way around. I love how versatile it is, and you do have to treat yourself every now and again after all!

As well as this I also treated myself to another Pandora item which was the beautiful wishbone ring which you can see below. This wasn't in the sale, but I' been waiting for it to come back in stock in my size for sometime! Again it's so sparkly as you can see below, and again the pics don't do it justice, but like the bangle it's so versatile, and was so worth the wait!

Then lastly my new 4Ocean bracelet turned up from America. This time not only does it support the removal of a pound of rubbish from the ocean, but 10% of the profits also got towards breast cancer research. I'm really happy with it and the baby pink of it contrasts really well against the grey and white of my existing one, and you can see it below.

On the weather front as with most of the rest of the country we finally got snow last week, which I have to say that I was pretty happy about being that we had missed it all up until that point! We didn't get anywhere near as much as most other parts of the country, but on the plus side, as much as I'm like a kid when it comes to snow we didn't get the major disruption that many others had either! Having just a small coverage from Monday night into Tuesday morning, which had nearly all burned off in the sun by mid day Tuesday. This was then followed by another covering on Friday afternoon which was more un-expected after storm Emma ended up completely missing us in the end, by moving further west than first thought! Due to this we ended up being sent home from work early, so I seized the opportunity to go and capture a few images of the snow before the light faded (being that I had the afternoon tea in Brighton the next day.) Luckily I managed to get home and back to my favorite spot in time, and you can see some of the pics that I got below.

They don't really do justice just how pretty it was, but I was glad that I seized the opportunity when I did, as come the next day it all burned off pretty quickly in the practically tropical 10 degree sun! A vast comparison to the -10 low that we hit the weds before. So by the time that I got to Brighton for the hen afternoon tea later that day, there was no snow left at all! But there ended up being plenty of dreary rain later in the afternoon instead! The same couldn't be said for my uni friends however, who were meant to be traveling down from both Salisbury and Warwick for the afternoon tea, but who were unable to because of the amount of snow that they had. Which was a shame as I haven't seen them since one of their weddings back in June, plus it meant that I didn't know anyone else but the bride! I still enjoyed myself though, and everyone was lovely so I soon got talking to people.

I hope that if you are in the UK that you didn't get hit too hard, or inconvenienced too much by the snow, and if so that you are all thawed out now! It's mainly been a mixture of wet and sunny days here so far this week. But even though there is still a chill in the air, the birds have been out tweeting and the nights are noticeably starting to draw out, so it does vaguely feel like spring maybe on the horizon!

I hope that the weather is good or perking up for you wherever you are, that you have all had a good week, and that you all have a fab weekend. I'll leave you with a few pics of some of the pretty sunsets that we have had on crisp sunny days, and thanks as always for visiting! x

Monday, 15 January 2018

It's been over six weeks since I last blogged (longer than I anticipated once again,) and I can't believe that in that time both Christmas and New Year have come and gone, that the twelfth night has passed, and that all of the decorations have now come down too! I had the longest time that I have ever had off over the Christmas period this year as well, four whole days. But as lovely as it was Christmas really did fly by probably the quickest that I have ever know it too! In fact the last time that I blogged Advent hadn't even started!

Once it came along though I obviously had to find an advent calendar for Florrie as well as us, and after looking high and low for one that had healthy-ish treats in I managed to find one from a site called Vio-Vet. It was cocoa, dairy, and sugar free, and had dandelion flavoured treats in! So as our fussy little monkey loves dandelion I thought that we would give it a go!

I have to say though that even though she sampled some of the treats she seemed much more interested in trying to eat the doors, but it was worth as go! Below you can see her sussing it out!

I on the other hand had a Snowman and the Snowdog advent calendar once again; complete with my name and which was bought for me by my mum. I then bought my hubby one without chocolate as requested, which had a rather cute looking hedgehog on sporting a Christmas hat! Plus I also naughtily treated myself to the L'occitaine advent calendar which I had been eyeing at work of sometime, and below you can see them all.

The weekend after the start of advent was the weekend that we put our tree! We are not normally organised enough to get it up that early, (even though it is usually my intention to do so,) but this year it was the only weekend that we had free. Plus back at the begging of November I did something that I never thought that I would do and broke family tradition by getting an artificial tree, meaning that we could put it up whenever! It wasn't really my intention to do so, but when we went to look at the decorations at one of our local garden centres I loved it and decided to make the change!

It still took hours to decorate and I wasn't really sure if it would go with our existing decorations which are pretty traditional colours, but I had bought some more to add to the collection anyway so I just thought that I would see how it turned out. Initially I started off with a white and gold theme, but it just looked a little too cold so I added some red in, and ended up with a red and white Scandinavian type theme. Like I say it took hours to do as usual and I was pretty knackered anyway, after going out for spontaneous drinks with the hubby and his friends until late the night before. But I was happy with how it turned out in the end, even though I wouldn't recommend a tree like this if you have carpets as the snow goes everywhere! Below you can see the result complete with a posing bunny and some of my fave decs!

On putting up my decorations I also came to the conclusion that I seem
to have amassed a growing collection of Christmas ornaments and cuddlies
over the years, which seem to consist mainly of Reindeer, Snowmen, felt
mice and gingerbread men! As you can see below! So apparently it's not just bunnies that I
have a thing about!

As well as decorating the tree and putting up the decorations we also used the Sunday of that weekend to once again be fairly organised for us and get our Christmas shopping done, mainly because as with before it was the only chance that were going to get!

Thankfully it turned out to be a lot less stressful than I thought it would be though and we managed to get everything that we were after, plus town wasn't as horrendously busy as I thought it would be either!

Whilst there we also met up with my mum and dad for a hot dog lunch at the Christmas market too, and mum bought me the lovely little reindeer below at one of the stalls.

Then once home I set about wrapping the presents that we had just bought, which is something that I usually leave until the day before Christmas Eve! But I felt in the zone so I grabbed some cookies, a glass of my fave Egg Nog Cream, and some Christmas tunes, and settled down to crack on with it!

During the following week I finally got around to putting my Christmas cards
back on sale on my Etsy shop, which was something that I had been holding back on as I was hoping to have a new range of designs for 2017. But
unfortunately with us being so busy and me working plenty of overtime
over the Christmas period, it just didn't end up happening.

I did however manage to
put up a new "Baby's First Christmas" card, which was an alteration of
my "New Baby Bobby/Bella" card design, seen below.

That weekend was then filled with birthday celebrations with not one but three of my closest girlfriends having turned 30 that week, two of which were on the same day! So we made our way to Brighton to celebrate and partied until the early hours, having a lovely time despite the rain and our planned rock club having an ABBA tribute act on that night. Needless to say Sunday was then a pretty quiet pj day!

The following Monday was another dreary, wet, and cold day for us unfortunately, but most of the rest of the UK had been hit by a relative snowfall by this point! Even places relatively close to us got snow, but we had no luck!

I had planned to meet up with a girly friend in town for lunch and a catch-up that day. But because the weather was so rubbish we decided to hibernate at hers instead, where she put on a lovely mini afternoon tea! Below you can see the cute Christmas cupcakes that we had, which were just delicious!

On the Tuesday of that week I went down to the garden centre where I got Flo from to get her supplies, and find her some Christmas presents. Unfortunately they didn't have what I was looking for including another sea grass tube, as hers has once again been demolished to a small slither that she can hide her head in and that's about it!

They did however still have the last two bunnies of their first litter since Flo, which I had first seen back at the end of Oct. At that point the same two bunnies were left but the lady told me that they were two males, and that they had to be separated as they were reaching adolescence and had begun to fight.

This time however like I say there were still there but they had named them, with one being Prince, and the other George, plus had done a little write up on them too. I have to say that I loved little George when I saw him before, but reading his write up just melted my heart even more and I would have loved to have taken him home!

Had I known for definite that Flo would have accepted him, and had she been spayed I would have done in a heartbeat, as I do worry if she gets lonely sometimes. But deep down and realistically I think that she is too much of a madam and too set in her ways with how she likes things and her space to be with another bunny now. But he was gorgeous!

I do also think that he may well be related to Flo too as he is the same breed, and they only tend to get the odd litter in, so I have my suspicions that the breeder that they use is probably the same one.

Below you can see the gorgeous George and his little write-up, who after having been at the garden centre for two and a half months at that point I really hope found a loving home for Christmas!

The following weekend bought plenty of food! Firstly with us continuing the celebrations for the girls 30th's by going for a lovely afternoon tea at a local tearoom!

None of us had been there before, but we had a lovely time and were completely stuffed by the time that we had left! It was such a gorgeous place with lots of little nick-nacks on sale including bunny bunting, which I resisted at the time but may have to go back and get at some point! It was also a freezing cold but bright day too, so it was a lovely place to go and warm up! Below you can see a few pics from the day!

After the Afternoon tea we then had a little mooch around the shops as the girls had a bit of Christmas shopping to do. Whist looking about I found this little reindeer in a little individual shop to add to my collection. I shouldn't have bought him really, but I just couldn't resist going back for him!

The second lot of food then came on the Sunday with my annual family Christmas meal! This was held up in Chichester at the same restaurant that we usually go to, along with my dad's side of the family, and was where I had my first Christmas dinner of the year! Then after we head back to my uncle's house as we usually do to catch-up, play games, have a bit more food, and this year play with his new Amazon Echo, which provided us all with much amusement!

The third lot of food then came the day after when I met with my mum for lunch after work. Where I had my favourite black forest hot chocolate, (only my second of the year) and a yummy pigs in blanket toasted Panini, as you can see below.

The fourth and final food event was then that evening which was for my work Christmas meal. Where I had my second Christmas dinner of the year which was a gorgeous three course meal consisting of; a salmon pate with Bellini's, a turkey roast, and coconut rice Brule, as you can see below.

The week that followed was then the last full week before Christmas and again a pretty busy one particularly for me at work, but it was fun too! I spent most of the time functioning on chocolate, tea, and gingerbread made by one of my work colleagues as you can see below, but it was Christmas so it was allowed right!?

We also had a late one on the Thursday as we had our annual secret Santa meal around the hubby's brothers, where we get a takeaway in and exchange secret Santa gifts between the siblings and their partners. We do this rather than buying for everyone as the hubby has a rather big family so we buy for the parents and kids, but do the secret Santa between the siblings. It was a really good evening filled with lots of giggles and silliness, but we didn't end up getting back until 1:30am so we were both pretty knackered for work the next day!

That Saturday then bought a dash into town by us in order to buy some new fairy lights, as the ones on our tree annoyingly stopped working the night before!

To be fair they have had a bit of a dodgy connection for a few years now and I have put off buying more for as long as possible as I'm not as keen on the LED one's or their colouring, but I managed to find some warm light LED's which weren't much different. The main issue I had though was getting the old lights off around the decorations and the new lights on around the decorations again, which took me a fair amount of the evening to do but was worth it in the end!

In-between buying, putting on, and taking off the old and new fairy lights I also attended the annual Christingle service at our local church, along with my mum and Nan. It was lovely to go again as I haven't been able to attend it as much in recent years, as it's usually held on Christmas Eve when I have been working. The service was good and filled with humour! Particularly at the point where the vicar asked the children to name the significance of each part of the Christingle, and on getting to the cocktail stick and fruits/sweets the chosen child said that they represented the four points on the Sat-Nav, to which there were many chuckles in response from the congregation.

After the service we then returned to my parents, where we enjoyed some mulled apple juice that I had made using some mulled spices from work. It seemed to go down well, was a good winter warmer, and a nice alternative to mulled wine since I was driving.

Below you can see my Christingle.

The Sunday was then Christmas Eve, so we spent the afternoon around my sister's with both my mum, dad, Nan and my sister's boyfriend's family, in order to start the festive celebrations!

They had both worked really hard putting on a lovely spread for us all, and we had an enjoyable time catching-up, playing games and messing around taking silly selfies. Below you can see some pics of the day including the lovely spread!

All of the food was a big hit, but especially my sister's marshmallow snowmen! Which my hubby thoroughly enjoyed toasting whilst singing "Do you wanna burn a snowman?...." in the style of that song from the "Frozen" movie! Poor Mr Snowman!

In fact we all had such a good time, that by the time that we left my sisters it was practically Christmas Day!

On Christmas Day itself I dropped my hubby off at his dad's first thing, before going to my parents in order to join them, my sister, and Nan, for presents, stockings, and Christmas lunch! Below you can see a few pics from the day.

My Christmas dinner consisted of: Bellini's with smoked salmon and cream cheese, a turkey roast with all of the trimmings, and a chocolate pudding complete with glitter sprinkles and popping candy!

I was also very spoilt, and as you can imagine a number of the gifts that I received were bunny related, including; a beautifully soft bunny dressing gown, two pairs of pj's with bunnies/hares and woodland animals on, a bunny candle holder, bunny socks, a bunny mug and calendar, a crazy bunny lady keyring, and a spoiled bunny plaque! All of which you can see below!

I also got the lovely baubles below too! The outside ones are from my
aunty, and the middle one was from our lovely neighbours, and came all
the way from Poland!

All in all it was a lovely chilled day spent with family, and then in the evening I went and joined my hubby at his dad's, before we returned home to chill and watch Christmas TV together.

Boxing Day was then spent at the hubby's mum and stepdads in Croydon, with his siblings and step-siblings, niece's and nephew's, Nan and Step-Nan, and my Mother-In-Law put on a huge spread as always. So much so that we ended up taking home a fair amount of food to feed us for the following week! We all enjoyed catching up and spending time with one another. But whilst we were there it was also a time for us to say goodbye too, as it was to be the last time that we would visit the hubby's childhood home of over 30 years before their move in the New Year.

The day after Boxing Day I was then back at work, but I didn't mind as I enjoy it and four days off was enough for me anyway. But the rest of that week up until New Years Eve was still a pretty busy one, with late nights as well as work. Then one evening we ended up around the hubby's brother's until the early hours with the boys watching football and the girls chatting and playing games, in order to celebrate my sister-in-laws birthday which was the following day.

Saturday was then the only day that we took a breather that week, so we spent the day lazing around in our pj's to recover from all of the festivities and ready ourselves for those of New Year Eve the day after.

New Years Eve itself nearly ended up turning into a complete disaster as we had friends coming around in the evening, but whilst I was getting the flat ready for their arrival my hubby went to take out the bins and broke off the handle to the front door locking us in! Of all of the days for it to happen! There was no warning either, I mean the door had been a little stiff for a while but we didn't have an issue until it broke! Cue me having to have to jump out of the front room window and being rather thankfully at this point that we are on the ground floor, before making a quick dash to our local DIY store before it shut to try and get a new lock

Unfortunately though the lock that we were replacing was rather old so we couldn't get an exact replica, but we managed to find something that we hoped would work! So I set about trying to fix it desperately hoping that it wouldn't take too long and end up with us having to cancel our New Year's plans!

As I have mentioned before my hubby is not the best when it comes to DIY, and I could see that I was going to struggle to make the lock work, or it was going to take hours to do so! But thankfully though my Father-In-Law came to our rescue and fixed it in the nick of time, meaning that our New Years plans could go ahead after all, and the by that point much needed drinks could flow!

So after all that we did end up having a lovely evening firstly catching-up and messing around with friends and neighbours at ours, before I went with my best friend to see her parents who were having a belated 60th birthday party for her mum, and the hubby ended up in town with our neighbours. After which we all crawled during the early hours. So needless to say New Years Day was a pretty chilled pj day spent catching-up on TV, watching films and eating my fave, leftover party food!

Last weekend was also spent the same way as we were both knackered after all of the festivities of late! So we were very lazy, staying in our pj's all day and didn't venture out all weekend!

Then this weekend just gone I had my sister-in-laws baby shower on Saturday at my hubby's mum and stepdad's new house, both of which were lovely! Below you can see a few pics of just some of the gifts that she received, and the yummy sweet table. Plus we played lots of funny games, and enjoyed catching up with both the mum to be and her friends and family. Only five weeks to go now until we meet our new niece, and we are all super excited!

Yesterday was then a pretty chilled one with the hubby playing on the PlayStation and catching up on TV for most of the day, whilst I went into town for a coffee, catch-up, and a bit of shopping with my mum.

On the Flo front the little monkey has being her general cheeky and lazy self, and was thoroughly spoilt over Christmas too as I'm sure that you can imagine! Getting some of her favourite treats, and a special edible Christmas forage box filled with lots of healthy hays and grasses, all topped off with a Christmas tree shaped treat covered in coconut flakes to look like snow! Below you can see her enjoying opening her Christmas prezzies, and her forage box.

Aside from this, before Christmas I also found her some ridiculously cute pet antlers in Accessorize which even my mum said that I just had to get for Flo, especially since she isn't adverse to such things! Then after I found them a also came across a pet Christmas hat in Pets At Home, which again I just had to get as I had been looking for one for some time!

Below you can see the results of both photoshoots.

Florrie also had her own little Christmas dinner too come Christmas Day, which consisted of her having her first sample of sprout coverings! Which I wasn't sure if she would eat or not as she is pretty fussy to say the least, refusing to try things that most other rabbits love; including carrots and carrot tops, banana's, broccoli, and not even being keen on fresh greens! In fact the only things that she will eat are her pellets, hay, grass, some foodsticks, dandelion mix, and basil, which she now loves but took her a while to get a taste for! Anyway she wasn't keen to start with but she did at least try them in the end, even though I don't think that she was particularity enthralled by them!

The only other new thing that I've got her into eating lately is "ReadyGrass," which is a product that has just started being being sold by the garden center that we got her from. I had never heard of it before but I though that I'd give it a go, as even though she has her grass box (which we need to re-grow again,) I do worry that she doesn't get enough grass being a house bun!

The "ReadyGrass" mix is as it's name suggests is basically grass which is grown and dried here in the UK, but in a way in which preserves the colour and the nutrients so it's more nutritious than hay. Apparently it was originally created for horses that couldn't go out to graze, so we are currently mixing it with her hay and substituting it with her dandelion mix, which isn't cheap and has been pretty flaky lately!

Below you can see her sampling her "Ready Grass" and pulling what we call her Gofer like faces!

It is however probably a good thing that she doesn't like to many foods though, as she would probably be a properly podgy bunny! As it is she has a bit of a belly on her when she is sprawled out, but she's still very slender when standing and I can feel her ribs fine so I don't think that she's obese just fluffy! I'm not sure how much she weighs exactly these days as she doesn't fit in the scales anymore, but she is heavy and lazy! I try to stimulate her as much as I can but she does like her sleep more and more, as you can see below!

Of all of the places that she could sleep in the hutch, apparently this is comfy!

And the award for the laziest bunny goes too...

When to she is wake though our little bunny loves to make mischief in many ways, including moving her log tube about with her nose! She's quite strong as it's not the lightest, but it's so funny to watch! Every day I move it to the corner out of her way, and every day she moves it diagonally so it lines up with her grass feeder, runs through it, and sticks her head out of the end to eat from the feeder! She also enjoys putting her paws up on it, and using it as a look-out, as well as a place to sleep as you can see above!

She is also moulting a lot again at the moment, which has lead to issues with over grooming and pearly poo's once again, and we have also had one more hair pulling incident since the last which seems to coincide with the moult once again too. As with last time she didn't seem distressed at all, but it was a fair amount once again.

Sofa peeing accidents also seem to have been on the increase recently, with one pooping incident too! Which happened after she sat to far back on the top of the sofa whilst trying to eat her cecotrophs, meaning that she didn't catch them before the fell and so they ended up down the back of the sofa and stuck to the wall! But all incidents seem to have happened when she has come out at different times to what she is used to over Christmas, as bless her she's such a routine based bunny with everything! Even down to where her food bowl and hay go! So we are back to our usual routine now!

Behaviour wise we also seem to have plateaued for a long time now too. She still snorts and squeaks when being picked up due to her hormones making her territorial, but she will very rarely show any other signs of aggression, and I can't even remember the last time that she nipped as we both have a pretty good understanding of each other now!

So that's about it! Sorry for another rather long blog post! I hope that you all had a very Happy Christmas, a very happy and peaceful start to New Year, and that you didn't get too affected by storm Elenor!

Also thank you for all of your support over the last year, it really does mean a lot!

About Me

Hi welcome to my blog & my life! I'm Jennifer I'm 29 years old and on a mission to become an Illustrator! I graduated with an HND in Illustration 2008, but after working full-time in retail to save for a wedding and our first property the Illustration got put on hold. After that I continued working thirty hours a week in my retail to subsidise me as I set up freelance selling my Bobby Bunny & Friends card range, but again time was not easily found around work, life, and doing up a property. Then at the end of March last year I was given the opportunity to take voluntary redundancy, so I now have the time to give my brand a good go at launching! I am a little eccentric and have an obsession with bunnies! I mainly draw animals as characters or in a realistic style working in watercolour & coloured pencils. A lot of my inspiration as I have grown up has come from my two beloved bunnies Milly & Molly, who both sadly past away at the grand age of 11 and a half in early 2012. I miss them both very much but their memories continue to inspire me every day. I also get inspired by nature and the outdoors, our one year old bunny Florrie, plus I love photography. x

Copyright

May I ask you to respect my work. Please do not copy or reproduce any of my characters, designs, photo's, stories or content without my permission. They are all protected by Copyright law. Thank you! x